The survey conducted by Axceler, a provider of governance tools for Microsoft SharePoint environments, finds that while 65 percent of IT managers have deployed Microsoft SharePoint enterprise wide, only 15 percent have put governance controls in place.

A lot of that may have to do with the fact that 41 percent of the respondents say governance in their organizations is viewed as a necessary activity and is not particularly well embraced. Only 27 percent say governance is viewed enthusiastically or seen as a critical component of SharePoint management.

Christian Buckley, director of product evangelism at Axceler, says much of this has to do with the natural tension between governance and productivity. The more governance that gets applied, the more likely it becomes end users will simply opt to use online services such as Dropbox, which winds up further exacerbating existing issues that IT organizations already have with “Shadow IT” systems.

Mike Vizard has been covering IT issues in the enterprise for 25 years as an editor and columnist for publications such as InfoWorld, eWeek, Baseline, CRN, ComputerWorld and Digital Review.